Re:Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming acc...
by Retric on Tuesday November 19, 2024 @04:15PM
(#42188165)
Farmland and forests are approaching different equilibrium points. It’s not an infinite supply or sink.
Much of the world was covered in forests for literally millions of years. Dig down a deep as roots go, count up the carbon in a given acre, and divide by a few million and you get essentially 0/year as the long term rate.
Transitions between forests and farmland basically store or release a fixed quantity per acre though it’s a slow process for deep root systems.
As noted in the MIT article:
> Since most natural ecosystems absorb and store carbon, while farmland in active use tends to produce it, this land use change can create more climate-warming pollution
Basically the land is changed from a carbon store to a carbon producer for biomass meaning you're no longer sequestering the carbon which is where you get extra carbon in the ecosystem even if you're not having any carbon in the transportation & production.